Education

Democrats are committed to ensuring all Americans have access to a high-quality education. If our nation is going to remain the world’s leader, we must not lag our global competitors in education. Democrats are focused on making higher education and skills training more accessible, reducing high school dropout rates, and providing students with the support they need to secure well-paying jobs.

From day one, the Trump Administration has undermined protections for and disinvested in America’s students. President Trump’s Fiscal Year 2018 budget proposes to cut teacher training and literacy programs and reduces funding for the schools and communities most in need. Congressional Republicans have also proposed extreme funding bills that dramatically cut education and job training programs, threatening our ability to build a competitive workforce and help more Americans find good-paying work.

Democrats are fighting to protect families from these harmful cuts and have a strong record of making investments that will strengthen education. During the worst of the Great Recession, Democrats helped prevent 300,000 layoffs of teachers and other important school personnel across our nation - layoffs that would have crowded our classrooms and harmed the quality of our kids’ education. We also helped save additional jobs across the country when Congress approved additional aid for K-12 educators in 2010.

While Republicans voted to cut Pell grants, which would affect nearly 10 million students, Democrats have been committed to making higher education more accessible and affordable for students. During the 111th Congress, under a Democratic majority, Democrats increased Pell grants, cut red tape in the loan process and made it easier to repay student loans once students join the workforce. We enacted a major reform bill that ended wasteful taxpayer subsidies to big banks and directed the savings to helping students instead. Democrats also made record investments in community colleges and minority-serving higher education institutions.

In order to put more Americans back to work and expand opportunities for the middle class, our nation must continue to invest in our K-12 schools, expand early childhood education, and ensure higher education is more affordable for Americans.

Wanted to be sure you saw this op-ed by House Democratic Whip Steny H. Hoyer (MD-5) and Rep. Aaron Schock (IL-18) in Education Week on their bipartisan legislation, the Full-Service Community Schools Act of 2014, which they introduced last week to expand the number of full-service community schools at the K-12 level around the country.

Madam Speaker, I rise today alongside my Republican colleague from Illinois, Representative Aaron Schock, who is here to speak about the Full-Service Community Schools Act of 2014, which we will be introducing later today.

Today, House Democratic Whip Steny H. Hoyer (MD) and Congressman Aaron Schock (R-IL) introduced the Full-Service Community Schools Act of 2014, legislation to expand the full-service community schools model across the country. Full-service community schools are public elementary or secondary schools that coordinate a wide range of social services to students and their families, such as:

I was proud to vote for H.R. 10, the Success and Opportunity Through Quality Charter Schools Act, which passed the House today with a bipartisan vote of 360-45. This legislation ensures quality, equity, and transparency in the federal Charter School Program.

This morning’s headline says it all. Instead of focusing on bipartisan legislation this week as originally intended, the GOP just couldn’t help themselves. Now the focus is on their partisan bills – which, as National Journal points out, is overshadowing the bipartisan charter schools bill on the Floor this week.

As Budget Chairman Paul Ryan continues his “poverty messaging tour” today, with both a Budget hearing and CBC meeting, your ever-helpful Democratic Whip press shop put some questions together for you to ask him. There’s a lot to choose from, including his budget that disinvests in the majority of critical programs that prevent poverty and help people get out of it, and a voting record that doesn’t reflect an interest in ending poverty. Here are just a few questions to get you started:

“I was pleased to join President Obama today at Buck Lodge Middle School in Adelphi, Maryland, as he spoke about his Administration’s ConnectED public-private partnership to connect our nation’s classrooms to the internet and deploy the latest technologies to help our children acquire the skills that will set them on the path to future success